


Home Among the Stars

by BlueColoredDreams



Series: String Theory [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:58:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: Lucretia thinks of home.





	Home Among the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Day two of magcretia week! Prompt is Sun/Moon

In all those years, they’ve never come to a plane with two suns like their home.

They’ve visited worlds with no suns, with no moons, two or more moons, rings like multicolored dust in the sky, with every color sky imaginable. Planes that rained acid, rained molten metal, or just didn’t rain at all. Planes with no air, with water instead of gas, planes that had atmospheres that killed and corroded.

This place, Faerun, is so much like home it aches. The magic is the same, the air, the plants, even the _people_. But there are no twin stars pulling this planet into their orbit. Just the one; it feels lonely, somehow.

She sighs, sitting on the edge of the deck for the fifth night in a row. She kicks her feet idly, watching the constellations begin to twinkle into view, one by one, as the singular sun slips below the horizon.

Something about this world just feels off. She knows no one else shares the sentiment, knows that the familiarity of the world excites them.

But there, to the left, three stars over, her favorite constellation from home is missing a star. The sky is the same shade, but blue instead of lavender. When she stands on the deck, at full noon, everything screams in her that it should be warmer, it should be brighter.

She misses her home. It’s not the first time she’s sunk into the feeling, but it’s the strongest it’s been since the early cycles. Everyone says this world is home, but how can it be, when they’re not from here—how can it be home when they _know_ what’s coming, what’s out there, what waits if they fail?

She wants to cry, wants to shout at them—this is not their home world, this is not their original plane. This might be where they put their lives, put their futures, but it wasn’t _theirs_.

She leans into the railing, resting her head between the levels, tearing her eyes from the horizon.

She daren’t press the issue, daren’t whisper the small things here that make this world needle at her. She’s fussed too much already, and she doesn’t want to be the thorn in their sides.

She looks back up, watching and waiting like she has for the past five nights. Each night is filled with vigil, only for her to swap shifts at sunrise. She sleeps, and then rises six hours later for food and to sit with the thick branch of oak she’d hauled into Magnus’ workroom. Then, she picks each splinter from her hands, dresses her ruptured blisters and bandages the new ones, and then waits, silent, lonely on her patch of horizon at the bow.

Aft is Lup. At dawn, they swap with Taako and Magnus, who later swap with Barry and Davenport, and Merle fills the gaps when needed. All eyes are on the sky, watching, waiting, for the Light to fall.

It’s soon; any day, it will fall, and everyone—even she is—is determined to make this time the last. Barry and Lup have managed a rough calculation that they _think_ has put them in the right part of the hemisphere, in prime position to see it come down.

She is grateful they trust her with this. It would be so easy for her to fail to watch, to keep their journey going one more time, but they know that she would never, despite her misgivings. She knows she would never, yet she is glad they have more faith in her than she does.

She counts the stars in her view as they come into sight. Gazes at the moon and wonders if it has the same craters as the one they had at home.

A chill rises over her and she shivers, clutching her robe tight around her. Her nose begins to run in the evening air, and she hears Lup sneeze from her post.

She longs for idle chatter, she longs for Lup’s off-tune humming from the first night of watch. But as the days pass, a quiet pall falls over them all as they wait and wait and wait. She’s desperate for some meaningful contact—Magnus is either dead asleep or fiddling down in Barry’s lab in the makeshift forge.

Each morning as they trade shifts, she sees more and more burns on his hands. He tries to hide them, looking sheepish, just as she awkwardly tucks her own palms behind her back. They are all out of their element, determined, quiet, and singular. She aches for more than a quick kiss and hurried meals.

She wants to sneak away and curl around him, needing his comfort more than ever—but if Lup and Barry can stand this brief stretch of time, then she can too.

The sky turns black with midnight and she draws her knees up from over the deck and into her robe, teeth chattering.

There are footsteps on the deck, and she knows the weight of them better than she knows her own breath. She leans into his shins, dutifully keeping her eyes on the horizon.

He kneels behind her, wrapping her in the quilt from his bed, then settles beside her. Something warm and sweet wafts up beside her, steam drifting across her line of sight.

“I brought tea,” Magnus whispers. “Oolong for me, some mint mixture from planetside Taako got.”

“Get under here,” she says, stretching her arm out.

He lifts one edge of the quilt and tucks himself beside her. She hears Lup snort from the stern, and Lucretia turns and catches the gleam of her teeth and eyes in the moonlight. Lup makes a rude gesture at her that involves a fair amount of finger thrusting and Lucretia sticks her tongue out, flipping her off from underneath the quilt, before turning back to watch the sky.

Magnus laughs, passing her a steaming mug. Lucretia takes a sip and feels what his presence hadn’t already warmed begin to melt; it tastes green, faintly floral and lemony with mint and thick with honey, just how she likes it.

She leans into him and sips on her tea; he sets his mug aside after a moment and draws her close, shifting until she’s in his lap, surrounded by his arms and the quilt.

“You should be asleep,” she says softly.

He rests his chin on her head, looking skywards. “I’ll be all right, Merle says he’ll take my shift,” he says. “’Sides, we haven’t gone stargazing in a while.”

“It’s the same here,” she says.

She feels Magnus look up, body shifting slightly behind her. His hands lace over her stomach, warm and wide and she doesn’t care what Lup teases her about, she wants to turn and have his hands on her, across her belly and back and thighs. His fingers twitch against her.

“The Belt is missing a star,” Magnus murmurs. His thumb rubs across her ribs and she trembles, both from his touch and his observation.

“Yeah,” she says softly. “Yeah, it is. I… didn’t think anyone would notice.”

Magnus makes a noise low in his throat, thoughtful. “Luce, of course. We all do,” he says. He moves one hand up to her jaw, gently turning her to look back at him. He lowers his face, pressing his nose against her cheek. “All sorts of little things, I see them, too. It’s not home, and I miss it. But… we’re here, and this is home, right here.”

“This plane?”

“No, with you,” he says earnestly. He plucks her mug from her fingers, setting it with his own. He grips her thigh, fingers still tucked under her jaw with his other hand. “It’s with you, Lucretia. I want my home to be with you, wherever, if you’ll have me when it’s all over. The place doesn’t matter, it’s who you’re with.”

Lucretia feels her face warm, heat boiling up her throat and deep in her gut, and she shivers from the sweetness and gravity in his voice. She turns her face away from him, feeling more flustered than any of the times they first stammered over their feelings, more messy than their first time, gratefulness and  love and peace settling over her.

She inhales shakily, covering his hand with her own. “Magnus, of course I—“ she starts.

And then the sky flashes with a brilliant aurora, a brief flash of green, then a streak of blue-white fire, followed by a flash of pink so bright it makes her eyes stream. There’s a clap of thunder, and it shakes through the ship.

“There it is,” Magnus says urgently, shifting to stand. “Time to move.”

“Holy shit, that was right over us,” Lup says, “Fuck, it worked! It fucking worked—!”

Lucretia shivers against the cold, rising to her feet as Lup raises the alarm and Magnus thunders down the stairs towards the bridge where Davenport sleeps.

She’s not sure when she stopped understanding what a home was, exactly, but she trusts Magnus.  

“Home. This is my home now,” she whispers to the empty deck, eyes cast towards the horizon, the bright streak of light only a green afterimage in her vision.


End file.
